Friday, October 24, 2014

An airline safety vid you'll actually want to watch. Air New Zealand made a Middle Earth themed safety video starting Peter Jackson, Elijah Wood, Richard Taylor, and a bunch of other Rings/Hobbit actors. It's great fun, and worth a watch even if you're not planning on flying any time soon.

Monday, October 20, 2014

A band called the Doubleclicks ran a ridiculously successful Kickstarter campaign in February (over $80K funded of an $18K goal) and wrote up a great -- if long, but long is good for this sort of thing -- article on how to do it. Good stuff, go read it. Thanks to John Scalzi for the link.

One thing I've always wondered about was the stretch goal thing. You know, how we're asking for $20K, but if we reach $25K we'll send everyone who backs us a free T-shirt or something? So you've basically got $5K to spend on T-shirts. That sounds like a lot, but what if you have a lot of people each making small contributions, rather than a smaller number of people each giving more? That's the same amount of money but more shirts owed. What about postage? What about packaging? What if you actually take in $100K, which sounds awesome but if that's another 10K people you have to send T-shirts to, plus whatever higher-level stretch goal premiums you promised...?

Clearly there's a way of making this work -- the whole cost + packaging + shipping thing probably explains why things like wallpapers are so popular as stretch goal premiums -- but just as clearly some people don't think about the details when they design their campaign. The Doubleclicks suggest very thoroughly spreadsheeting everything before you take step one of putting your campaign up. Smart advice; everyone should do it.

Another interesting point was that you need to look at how many active fans you have -- people who already know you, like your work, and who are regularly in touch through a newsletter or your web site or Twitter or whatever you use. That number is a key factor in how much money you can realistically ask for. People who are already popular will be able to raise more money. People who are just starting out and have no friends outside their mother and their office mate at the day job will have a much harder time. Again, it makes sense, but some people seem to think Kickstarter is a magic pot of money that they just have to reach out and take. The Doubleclicks talk about how to analyze the size of your existing network, compare it with successful campaigns run by people in your business and the size of their networks at the time their campaign started, and figure out about how much you can realistically hope to get. Math is good when you're dealing with money.

There's a lot of great info here -- if you've ever thought of doing a crowdfunding campaign, or might some day, go check it out.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

If you've just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. :) I do these posts every month, so if this post isn't dated in the same month you're in, click here to make sure you're seeing the most recent one.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple antho guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.

A man called Arnold Paole was accused of being a vampire in 1732 in Yugoslavia, after his body was dug up five years after his death and found with long pointed teeth and nails, with blood in his mouth.

The Mothman of West Virginia was a winged man-sized creature with glowing red eyes and huge moth-like wings sprouting from its back, seen repeatedly during 1967 and 1968.

In 1977, a dead creature that looked a lot like a plesiosaur was caught in the nets of a Japanese fishing vessel, the Zuiyo-maru, offshore east of Christchurch, New Zealand.

The sage Apollonius of Tyana, born in Turkey at the start of the first century AD, hunted demons, and once saved one of his students from a vampire who was going to drink his blood and eat his soul.

These are all supposedly true stories. And there are more, more tales of monsters that shouldn’t exist, of demons and devil possession, of serial killers wearing human skin, ghosts terrorizing families…

But these tales also sound like fiction, don’t they?

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR:

Blurring the Line (working title) is seeking to blur the line between what is fiction and what is non-fiction. We want horror stories, tales that are serious and frightening, hard-hitting and imaginative. We want monsters; vampires and zombies and werewolves and the mummy and creatures from the Black Lagoon and giant killer plants and mutated ants and demons and devils and Mothmen and everything else you can think of or that hasn’t been thought of yet. But we also want your serial killers and demented and depraved humanity. We want it all. Push your imagination and take us into the far reaches of your darkness, without letting go of reality. Make us believe.

BUT, we want to be scared, made to feel uneasy and uncomfortable. We do not want to be shocked for no reason; if you’re going to eviscerate someone, there needs to be a good reason for doing so. We want style over shock value. We do not want supernatural romance, or weird fiction. We’re not looking for tales about a monster hunter or a covert monster hunting team (we love these stories but they’re not what we’re looking for here).

Details on the non-fiction component of Blurring the Line will be announced later in 2014, so keep an eye out for this.

Interior artwork will be by the super brilliant Alex McVey, and his pieces will combine to tell a horrifying story of their own.

PLEASE FOLLOW THESE GUIDELINES WHEN SUBMITTING TO US:

1. Please put your full contact details on the first page of the manuscript top left, with word count top right.
2. Standard submission format, with minimal document formatting.
3. Courier or Times New Roman set at 12pt. Italics as they will appear. No underlining.
4. Double spaced.
5. Please don’t use TAB or space bar to indent lines. Use ‘styles’ only. If unsure or using a program that has no styles, do not indent at all. That’s still cool.
7. NO LINE between paragraphs unless a line-break is required.
8. Please put full contact details on the first page of the manuscript (yes, I said this twice… it’s important).
9. Send your submission to Marty Young at martyyoung2002[@]yahoo.com as an attachment. In the subject line of your email, please put Submission: [STORY TITLE]

(Replace [STORY TITLE] with your actual story title. Yes, unfortunately I do need to state this)

The only variation to this format is that italics MUST appear as they will be used; no underlining.

Anyone that fails to follow these guidelines will likely see their story gobbled up by spam gremlins.

This anthology, with the working title Hear Me Roar, is looking at kick-arse chicks of all varieties in a speculative fiction world – female superheroes, scientists, subversives and rulers. We want character-driven stories with strong female protagonists.

The stories can be any variety of speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, horror, paranormal romance, urban fantasy or a mix.

We are not looking for stories where women are objectified, where there is gratuitous gore or erotica.

The anthology will be edited by Liz Grzyb, award-winning editor of eight anthologies including The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror, and will be published by Ticonderoga Publications in 2015.
Submission guidelines

Inspired by the cyberpunk and feminist science fiction of yesterday and the DIY, open access, and hacktivist culture of today, Accessing the Future will be an anthology that explores the future potentials of technology to augment and challenge the physical environment and the human form—in all of its wonderful and complex diversity. We are particularly interested in stories that address issues of disability (invisible and visible, physical and mental), and the intersectionality of race, nationality, gender, sexuality, and class—in both physical and virtual spaces. Accessing the Future will be a collection of speculative fiction that places emphasis on the social, political, and material realms of being.

We want stories from as many diverse people as possible, especially from people with disabilities (visible and invisible, physical and mental), chronic illness or mental illness, who are neuroatypical, or people who have an understanding of the institutional and social construction of disability. We welcome stories from marginalized groups within the speculative fiction community (e.g., QUILTBAG, people of colour, non-North American writers), and from anyone with sensitivity to intersectional politics.
Payment and Rights

We pay $0.06/word (six cents a word) for global English first publication rights in print and digital format. The authors retain copyright.

Submission Guidelines

== Send your submissions to accessingfuture@gmail.com by midnight UTC on November 30th, 2014.
== Length 2500-7500 words (with a preference for 4000-6000 words).
== No reprints or simultaneous submissions.
== Attach your story as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf file, with your name, the story title, and the wordcount on the first page.
== We do not require or request that submitting writers identify themselves as a person with a disability, but we respect anyone’s desire to self-identify.

What We Want:

We want stories that place emphasis on intersectional narratives (rejection of, undoing, and speaking against ableist, heteronormative, racist, cissexist, and classist constructions) and that are informed by an understanding of disability issues and politics at individual and institutional levels. We want to read stories from writers that think critically about how prosthetic technologies, new virtual and physical environments, and genetic modifications will impact human bodies, our communities, and planet. Here are some questions we want writers to think about

== How will humanity modify the future world?
== What kinds of new spaces will there be to explore and inhabit? Who will have access to these spaces and in what ways?
== Given that we all already rely on (technological) tools to make our lives easier, what kinds of assistive and adaptive technologies will we use in the future?
== How will augmentations (from the prosthetic to the genetic) erase or exacerbate existing differences in ability, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, and race?
== What does an accessible future look like?

We Will Not Accept:

== Stories of “cure” (or where disability exists as a condition to be “fixed,” erased through genetic engineering, etc.)
== Depictions of people with disabilities as “extra special,” “magical,” or “inspirational” because of their disability.
== Stories that generally reproduce today’s dominant reductionist viewpoints of disability as a fixed identity and a problem to be solved.
== Any story that addresses disability in a realistic and “positive” way but contains any element that is racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise insulting or harmful to other marginalized identities.

Our anthology-in-progress, Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany, will honor science fiction's living legend, the author of over 20 novels, approximately as many short stories, five notable memoirs and counting, and ten essential books of genre criticism. SFWA Grand Master, Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductee, and multiple award-winner Samuel R. Delany ("Chip" to his friends) has inspired and taught many of us in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, directly and indirectly, by example and by intent. We want to demonstrate to the world the power of his work through what we write, and thank him for the grace of his existence. Would you like to be part of this anthology? Read on.

Response time: You’ll hear back from us about your submission by January 29, 2015, at the latest.

Wordcount limits: 1000 to 10,000 for prose

Pay: minimum .05/word up to $400 total per story/essay for original prose; minimum .02/word up to $160 total per story/essay for reprint prose.

Note: Acceptance, contracts, and payments will follow a successful crowdfunding campaign. Campaign will run October 1 – 31, 2014.

Reprints:

We're accepting a very few reprints, and plan to include no more than five total in the book. We already have two in mind. You'll have a much easier time selling us original material.

What we're looking for: We want stories and critical essays that relate in some way to the strength and beauty of Samuel R. Delany’s body of work. This relationship can be made evident through allusions to the author himself; through allusions to his work's titles, characters, situations, settings, etc.; through evoking a Delanyesque atmosphere; or through analysis of any of these elements, in the case of nonfiction. We're hoping for essays which elucidate his important, lasting contributions to literature; and for fiction inspired by these contributions.

What we're not looking for: Please don't send us your parodies of Delany or his work. We're also not at all confident you'll impress us with your serious attempts to reproduce his style; if you must try us with something along those lines, be aware that's going to be an extremely hard sell. Further, because Delany's critical writing though rigorous, is so clear and easily understandable, we’re not at all interested in deliberately obscurantist, jargon-laden critical essays.

How to submit:

Once the submission period opens, we'll accept ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS ONLY. We’ll destroy unread anything you send before September 4 or after December 1. During that period, send your submissions as attached .rtf or .doc files to: storiesforchip@gmail.com. In your message you can include any previous publishing credits you'd like to mention, and make any statement you care to make about your connections to Delany.

How to support without submitting: Check back here this February 2015 to participate in our crowdfunding campaign.

Publication and review copies: Our press is Rosarium, noted publisher of Mothership: Tales of Afrofuturism and Beyond. We expect to publish Stories for Chip in July 2015, and to make ARCs available to reviewers in March 2015.

She Walks in Shadows, the first all-woman Lovecraft anthology, will hold an open submissions period from November 15, 2014 to December 15, 2014. DO NOT SEND STUFF BEFORE THAT DATE. Keep the following in mind:

Submit short stories inspired by the work of Lovecraft that focus on a woman or female deity. It may be a character from Lovecraft’s work or someone of your own creation. You are not restricted to the 1920s as a setting. Steampunk, dieselpunk, noir, and any other sub-genre you can imagine are fine with us. Give us your best and most polished work. And yes, you must be a woman to submit. Women only.

To avoid the Asenath effect (that means every character in the anthology would be Asenath Waite), we asked the authors who are contributing stories to pick a different character from a Lovecraft story. While you are not bound to these restrictions, we suggest that if you use a character from Lovecraft’s fiction, you avoid the usual suspects (Asenath and Lavinia).

Consider interesting and novel settings for your stories. Surely, strange Lovecraftian entities haunt contemporary Nunavut or the Inca fought strange webbed monstrosities centuries ago. Anne Boleyn, evil sorceress or woman fighting the good fight against the Mi-Go? We may never know. Or maybe we will.

POCs are highly encouraged to send stories. Transgender writers: same thing.
Stories may be sent in French, English, or Spanish. We can read all three languages.
Story length is up to 4,000 words with a pay rate of 6 cents a word (Canadian $, eh). No reprints, please.

Submit your final story as a Word or RTF attachment by the deadline to innsmouthfp(at)gmail(dot)com. Use the subject line: Slush Shadows. Include a cover letter with a biography (Yes, we want to know a bit about you), word count, and your name and contact information. Please use italics as italics, bold as bold, number your pages and the like.

We’ll get back to you early in 2015 with an answer.

We’ll be purchasing exclusive English language rights for 12 months. Exceptions: You may submit the story to award showcases, best of reprints, etc. We print in POD and release e-books. Due to this, we will ask for the right to maintain your story in print for a predetermined amount of time (5 years).

We’ll send you a contributor’s copy in each format released (paperback, hardcover, MOBI, ePub).

Steampunk is a difficult and demanding genre to write in. Therefore we are only accepting the best stories you can bring to the plate. To be published early next year.

"The Lost Worlds" will be a anthology in the Steampunk Horror Genre devoted to the post-apocalyptic theme. Send us worlds rebuilt by steam powered engines and mechanical marvels. Send us characters we can root for as they fight the good fight.

Send us worlds our readers can romanticize about, characters that jump off the page. We want to set the Steampunk world ablaze with "The Lost Worlds." So we only want your best.

Apotheosis – Stories of human survival and defiance in a world subjugated by the return of the Elder Gods. Humanity struggled to grow and evolve as a species for thousands of years forever caught in the shadow of a dread threat known only to a devoted few. When the stars are right, the Old Ones will return to claim utter dominion of the world. Lovecraft Mythos stories often climax at the moment of the fateful return of the Elder Gods and the audience is left to ponder what might happen next. This anthology features stories about humanity under the reign of the Elder Gods and ancient terrors.

What do we mean by Lovecraft Mythos stories in relation to Apotheosis? We’re looking for stories inspired by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and associated writers such as August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard , Robert Bloch, Henry Kuttner, and Frank Belknap Long. We’re also interested in writers that inspired Lovecraft such as Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood and Lord Dunsany. We’re interested in classic mythos gods and monsters and originals that have inspired by the mythos.

What type of stories are we looking for? We’re looking for character-driven stories set during a time in the future where the ancient terrors that once ruled the Earth have claimed complete and utter dominion of the Earth. We’re less concerned about the strict interpretation of the Elder Gods than good stories that deal with real human concerns. How do people survive? How does life change? Will people accept their new gods or will they rebel? What will it mean to be human in such a world of gods and monsters? Surprise us. Don’t give us stories that we’ve read before. We want worlds that feel real populated by characters from different cultures, genders, and ethnicities. Avoid cultural appropriation. Do your homework.

What types of submissions should I avoid? We’re not as interested in the moment the ancient horrors return and conquer the world, but how humanity survives after the war is lost. Flashbacks are OK, but the story should not be about that time. We enjoy historical mythos fiction, but this is not the anthology for it. Stories must be set in the future. We are not looking for poetry for this anthology.

Submission Details:

== Word-count: 2,000 to 7,000 Worldwide print and e-book rights (exclusive for 6 months, non-exclusive for an additional 30 months).Exceptions will be made for stories accepted for “Best Of” anthologies. Apotheosis will be available in both Print on Demand and e-book formats.

== Submissions open November 1, 2014, and will close at 11:59 PST on December 31, 2014. You may submit at: apotheosis.anthology@gmail.com (Do not submit before November 1st 2014 or your submission will be deleted)

== Queries and questions may be sent to : apotheosis.anthology@gmail.com. (You may send queries and questions anytime.) All responses will be accepted or rejected by January 15th, 2015. Please do not query about submitted stories before then. No multiple or simultaneous submissions. Our word count limits are hard for open submissions. Reprints may be submitted, but we’re only accepting three or four at the most. (It should be clearly stated that the submission is a reprint in your cover later or this will be an automatic rejection later.)

== Please use standard format guidelines. If it is difficult to read, we will reject your story. Your story must include your name, address, telephone number, email address, and approximate word count on the first page. Your cover letter should include your complete contact information, story title, approximate word count, and a short bio.

== Payment: 3 cents per word (or 1 cent per word for reprints), paid within 90 days after publication. Plus contributor copy of print and e-book.

Survival horror says it all. Resident Evil… Silent Hill… with soldiers. Straining to make that one clip of rounds last. Making sure not to waste a single bullet. Lost in the shadows, low on ammo, only edged weapons, and/or wounded, fighting to survive, the last remnants of the mission team trying to make sense of where they had gone wrong, and how to make it out alive with next-to-no resources.

We still want military combat from any period, don’t get me wrong, but we also want fear… we want suspense and tension… we want originality in the monster/antagonist, and how they are finally overcome. To allow for this building of atmosphere and tension, we have upped the word limit to 10,000.

And then, we want something jaw-droppingly amazing.

We STRONGLY suggest you read the first and/or second SNAFU volume to see what it is we like.

SNAFU II will hold novellas by some best-selling authors, with announcements to come soon.

== Edited by Geoff Brown and Amanda J Spedding
== Payment: AUD4c/word and one contributor copy in each format released
== Wordcount range: 1,000 – 10,000 words (query for shorter or longer)
== Submission window: October 1 – December 31, 2014 (anything submitted outside of this window will be deleted without being read)
== Projected publication date: Second Quarter 2015

Please follow these guidelines when submitting to us:

1. Please put your full contact details on the first page of the manuscript top left, with word count top right.
2. Standard submission format, with minimal document formatting.
3. Courier or Times New Roman set at 12pt. Italics as they will appear. No underlining.
4. Double spaced.
5. Please don’t use TAB or space bar to indent lines. Use ‘styles’ only. If unsure or using a program that has no styles, do not indent at all. That’s still cool.
6. NO SPACE between paragraphs unless a line-break is required. ONE SPACE after full stops.
7. Please put full contact details on the first page of the manuscript (yes, I said this twice… it’s important).
8. Send your submission to Geoff Brown at editor@cohesionpress.com as an attachment (doc or docx).
9. In the subject line of your email, please put SNAFU2: [STORY TITLE]

(Replace [STORY TITLE] with your actual story title. Yes, unfortunately I do need to state this)

NO MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS
NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS

For a guide to standard submission format, see: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html

The only variation to this format is that italics MUST appear as they will be used; no underlining.

Anyone that fails to follow these guidelines will likely see their story gobbled up by spam gremlins.

Villains, Inc. — An Anthology Call — Tired of goody-two-shoes? Why should those "glowing heroes of good" get all the glory? Villains! They can be antiheroes, misunderstood, or just people who love to cause chaos for the sheer madness of it all. LT3 is seeking stories where the focus is, for once, on the baddies. The badder the better!

Please note, Less than Three has a strong policy against stories with themes of non-consent.

THE DETAILS:
== Deadline is December 31, 2014 (give or take, we won’t kill you for sending it off the following morning).
== Stories should be at least 10,000 words and should not exceed approx 20,000 words in length.
== Stories may be any pairing except cisgender heterosexual M/F (trans* M/F, M/M, F/F, poly, and all permutations thereof are acceptable).
== Stories must have a happily ever after (HEA) or happy for now (HFN) end.
== Any sub-genre is gladly accepted: sci-fi, mystery, contemporary, steampunk, etc.
== All usual LT3 submission guidelines apply.

Villains, Inc. is a general release anthology, meaning stories will be sold as a compiled ebook in the LT3 book market. Payment will be $200 on acceptance of the story. Authors will receive one copy each of the ebook formats LT3 produces and two copies of the paperback compilation.

Stories should be complete before submitting, and as edited as possible. They can be submitted in any format (doc, docx, rtf, odt, etc) preferably single spaced in an easy to read font (Times, Calibri, Arial) with no special formatting (no elaborate section separation, special fonts, etc). Additional formatting guidelines can be found on the above-linked submissions page.

IMPORTANT: This anthology is being coordinated and edited by one of LT3′s senior editors, Tan-ni Fan. To submit, please send your manuscript to tannifanpw@gmail.com. Include the following in your email:

== Put SUBMISSIONS in the subject line! Emails without this subject line run the risk of not being seen or read, so please, do not forget this!
== Your real name, pen name (if you use one), and preferred email address.
== The approximate total length of the completed story.
== A brief summary of the story, not to exceed approximately 200 words in length.
== Attach the complete manuscript in .doc, .docx, or .odt format.

Any questions/concerns should be directed to the Editor, Tan-ni Fan at tannifanpw@gmail.com (or you can ping her on twitter @tannifan).

[NOTE: Less Than Three is a romance press, and is looking for romance stories. Romance presses often assume you know this without being told.]

Dark Recesses Press is now accepting short novella length submissions for A Collection of Untimely Hours. Between four and six stories will be selected for this themed anthology.

The theme is time. The genre is dark fiction. A broad spectrum, we know, but what we mean by this is truly the dark spectrum – from horror to supernatural, to slipstream – and all points in between. That said, Splatterpunk and Bizarro fiction are probably not the right fit for this gathering. This is also not the venue for high fantasy or hard sci-fi, but if you have a shadowy urban fantasy or a dark tale that happens to take place upon a space freighter, that’s fine. Just make sure there’s no need to learn a new language in order to read the story. Seriously.

The key here is to offer our readers a cool creep, a sense of dread, and the tension of time from which they can’t escape. It’s your world. Build it, and drag the reader through it with the seconds ticking at their heels.

Of course we have the standard caveat of Gore for Gore’s sake and overused tropes are not going to fly. But you’re professionals and you don’t see a need to resort to cheap parlor tricks, or taking the easy road to reach nirvana.

One more important NO : No Sexual Abuse of Children, direct or implied. Period. It’s not a flexible point. If you’re unsure, query at info@darkrecessespress.com and we’ll be happy to clarify and save you time or frustration.

Now for the nitty-gritties:

Submission deadline: December 31st, 2014Subs2

Word count: 15,000 – 25,000 firm

Pay: 3 cents / word

Reprints: No

Rights: First North American Serial Rights (FNASR) and Electronic Rights to distribute the text in multiple print and electronic formats for twelve months from publication, and a three-year non-exclusive worldwide license from the date of publication to continue to publish your work in other formats as part of the anthology volume in which it was first published without extending the license term and without constituting a new publication, and to keep that discrete anthology available in our salable inventory throughout that term.

(For example, we can re-publish the same anthology that includes your work in a cool new techno-format that comes along, but we can’t publish your work as part of a different anthology. Also, no matter what new format is added during the license term, our right to publish still ends three years after initial publication unless we re-negotiate with you.)

Format: Standard Manuscript Format with the following noted requirements.

== Scene breaks marked with ##
== Special formatting (italics, bolds, underlines) set up exactly as you want it printed.
== DO NOT USE TABS OR SPACES for Indents. I cannot stress this enough. DON’T Set the indent under your document paragraph settings, or just don’t indent.
== Do not use special quotes
== Saved as .doc, .docx, or .rtf format.

Send submissions to: submissions@darkrecessespress.com

Subject line: “UNTIMELY HOURS – ”

***

UNTIL FILLED -- The Lost Worlds -- Eldritch Press ** First Posted August 2014

Include in the subject line of your submission Sub_The Lost Worlds_authors name

Updated Payment: Eight cents a word.

Story Length: Up to 20,000 novella length stories.

Rights Requested: One year exclusive rights upon publication.

This will be released in paperback, Limited Hardcover and E-book format.

Cover art will be revealed soon.

Steampunk is a difficult and demanding genre to write in. Therefore we are only accepting the best stories you can bring to the plate. To be published early next year.

"The Lost Worlds" will be a anthology in the Steampunk Horror Genre devoted to the post-apocalyptic theme. Send us worlds rebuilt by steam powered engines and mechanical marvels. Send us characters we can root for as they fight the good fight.

Send us worlds our readers can romanticize about, characters that jump off the page. We want to set the Steampunk world ablaze with "The Lost Worlds." So we only want your best.

About Me

My name is Angie and I'm a writer living in Seattle, WA with my husband. I publish science fiction, fantasy and crime stories under Angela Penrose, and romance and erotica under Angela Benedetti. I pretty much live at the computer, either writing or online or both. My schedule is chaotically variable, so I might be awake or asleep at any given moment. It's not all bad; writing at 2am when it's quiet is actually pretty cool.